Bargain fever: shopping in a discounted world

MINNEAPOLIS - If you paid full price for an item in recent weeks, according to author Mark Ellwood, you got ripped off.

"No one should pay full price for anything, ever again," said Ellwood, who's latest book is titled,

His latest book is titled: Bargain Fever: How to Shop in a Discounted World.

Ellwood calls today's shopping 3.0 and said for the first time the purchasing power is not with the stores, but in the hands of the buyers.

"Don't wait for sales signs to go up," explained Ellwood. "Create a sale for yourself, make it a spontaneous sale by walking up to a sales assistance and saying I love these shoes, they're a little too expensive can you do anything with the price. I bet you just for asking nicely you'll get 10 percent off."

He added you're likely to get a deeper discount if you wait for the item to go on sale, retailers typically discount items after six weeks.

But not every deal is necessarily a good one. Ellwood explained how stores know shoppers are in search of discounts, so they offer all kinds of sales and show all sorts of discounted signs to tap into the brain and increase dopamine levels.

"Dopamine is a problem for us," Ellwood said. "This 'buy-agra' surging through our brain, we need to clean it out. The longer it lingers the more likely we are to spend and it's always triggered when we see a sale sign."

Too many sale signs and to the unaware shopper, that wallet will stay open.

While overall the 3.0 advantage is with the consumer, there's a fine line, it can easily flip to a business' advantage when shoppers get carried away.